title: The usefulness of combined diagnostic CT and (99m)Tc-octreotide somatostatin receptor SPECT/CT imaging on pulmonary nodule characterization in patients.
abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate the clinical value of combination of diagnostic computed tomography (CT) and somatostatin receptor imaging with (99m)Tc-octreotide acetate SPECT/CT in differentiation of benign pulmonary nodules from cancers.
  
  
  METHODS
  This was a retrospective study, 29 patients with suspected pulmonary neoplasm underwent diagnostic CT and (99m)Tc-octreotide SPECT/CT scans, and the tumor-to-normal tissue tracer value (T/N) for (99m)Tc-octreotide was measured. Diagnosis was confirmed by histological analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eighteen of the 29 patients included in this study had lung cancer: 2 with small cell lung cancer and 16 with nonsmall cell lung cancer. The other 11 patients had benign lung lesions: 5 with tuberculosis, 4 with nontuberculosis infection, 1 with hematoma, and 1 with fibroma. (99m)Tc-octreotide uptake (expressed as mean T/N±SD) was significantly higher in lung cancers (2.58±0.91) than benign lesions (1.38±0.79) (p=0.002). Specificity for pulmonary malignant nodule diagnosis was 63.6% for diagnostic CT, 72.7% for somatostatin receptor SPECT/CT imaging, and 81.8% for the combined use of diagnostic CT and somatostatin receptor SPECT/CT imaging.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Somatostatin receptor imaging with (99m)Tc-octreotide SPECT/CT is useful for the differentiation of benign pulmonary nodules from lung cancers, the combination of diagnostic CT and (99m)Tc-octreotide SPECT/CT further increases the specificity of malignant pulmonary nodule detection.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Radiology, Nanjing Hospital, Nanjing Medical University , Nanjing, Jiangsu, China .
authors.forename: Liwei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xindao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jianping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Lingquan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Qianzhi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Baozhong
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Xiao-Feng
authors.initials: XF
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods; D015282:Octreotide / Q000031:analogs & derivatives*; D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D017481:Receptors, Somatostatin / Q000032:analysis*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / Q000379:methods*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: C493098:99mTc-octreotide; D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D017481:Receptors, Somatostatin; D015282:Octreotide